“I didn’t – ”
“Don’t bother.”
She hung up. Bosch sat there a long time thinking about what she had said.
“Chastain, you asshole,” he said out loud.
He turned out the light again and dropped back on the bed. He was soon asleep and having the same dream again. He was riding Angels Flight, going up. Only now there was a little blond girl seated across the aisle from him. She looked at him with sad and empty eyes.
Chapter 21
BOSCH had a surprise waiting for him when he pushed the supply cart stacked with file boxes through the door of Deputy Chief Irving’s conference room. It was quarter to eight on Sunday morning. There were six FBI agents already crowded into the room and waiting. The surprise was the lead agent who stepped over to Bosch, his hand out and a smile on his face.
“Harry Bosch,” the man said.
“Roy Lindell,” Bosch replied.
Bosch pushed the cart over to the table and took the man’s hand.
“You’re on this? What happened to OC?”
“Organized crime was getting boring. Especially after the Tony Aliso case. Hard to top that one, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
A couple of years earlier they had worked the Aliso murder – the “Trunk Music” case, according to the local media. Bosch and Lindell had started out as adversaries, but by the time the case was concluded in Las Vegas there was a respect between the two that certainly wasn’t shared between the two agencies they worked for. Bosch immediately took Lindell’s assignment to the Elias case as a good sign.
“Listen,” Lindell said, “I think we have a few minutes. You want to grab a cup of coffee and talk about things?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
As they walked down the hall to the elevator they were met by Chastain, who was heading to the conference room. Bosch introduced Lindell.
“You guys going for coffee? I’ll come with you.”
“No, that’s okay,” Bosch said. “We’ve got some stuff to talk about… and I don’t want it coming out of Harvey Button’s mouth on the news later. Know what I mean?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bosch.”
Bosch said nothing. Chastain looked at Lindell and then back at Bosch.
“Never mind the coffee,” he said. “I don’t need artificial stimulants, anyway.”
When they were alone at the elevator lobby Bosch warned Lindell about Chastain.
“He’s leaking,” he said. “You see Channel Four last night?”
“The Internet dominatrix thing?”
“Yeah. Six people knew about that. Me, my two partners, Chastain, Carla Entrenkin and Deputy Chief Irving. I can vouch for my partners and I doubt Entrenkin would leak anything negative about Elias. Either Irving or Chastain talked to Harvey Button. My bet is on Chastain. Irving’s been trying to put a clamp on things from the start.”
“Well, was the story bullshit or what?”
“Looks that way. We can’t make a connection. Whoever leaked it did it to smear Elias, even things up a bit.”
“I’ll watch him. But you know sometimes leaks aren’t from the obvious source.”
The elevator opened and Lindell stepped on, leaving Bosch standing there thinking about Irving and whether it was possible that he was the leak.
“You coming?” Lindell asked.
Bosch stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor.
“You check the news this morning?” Lindell asked. “How’s it going out there?”
“So far so good. A couple fires last night, but that was about it. No looting and it’s pretty quiet now. Supposed to be rain coming in by tomorrow. Maybe that will help.”
They went into the cafeteria and took their coffees to a table. Bosch checked his watch and saw it was five before eight. He looked at Lindell.
“So?”
Lindell laughed.
“So what the fuck. We going to divvy this up or what?”
“Yeah. I got a deal for you, Roy. A good deal.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“You can have it. I’ll step back and let you run the show. I just want one thing. I want my team to run with the original case. Stacey Kincaid. We’ll take the original murder book and review everything RHD did on the case. Then we’ll take everything Elias did and go from there.”
Lindell’s eyes narrowed their focus as he wondered what this meant. Bosch continued.
“It looks like Elias’s plan was to go into court this week and try to prove that Michael Harris didn’t kill her. He was going to name her killer and – ”
“Who?”
“That’s the million-dollar question. We don’t know. He was keeping it in his head instead of his files. But that’s why I want the case. Because if he had a bead on somebody, that somebody’s a pretty good suspect for the Angels Flight murders.”
Lindell looked down at his smoking coffee and was quiet a long moment.
“Sounds like lawyer bullshit to me. Grandstanding. How was he gonna find the killer if you guys on the PD didn’t? That is, if the killer really wasn’t Michael Harris, like every cop and white person in this town believes.”
Bosch hiked his shoulders.
“Even if he was wrong – even if he was going to name somebody as a smoke screen, it could have made him a target.”
He purposely wasn’t telling Lindell everything – particularly about the mystery notes. He wanted the FBI agent to think that Bosch’s team would be chasing rainbows while he would be commanding the real investigation.
“So you run with that and I chase down bad cops, is that the deal?”
“Pretty much. Chastain should have a head start for you. First of all, he’s the most familiar with the Black Warrior thing. He handled the IAD investigation on it. And – ”
“Yeah, but he cleared everybody on it.”
“Maybe he messed up. Or maybe he was told to clear everybody.”
Lindell nodded that he understood the suggestion.
“Also, his crew was supposedly going through Elias’s files yesterday and making a list. And I just brought in five more boxes of files. From all of that you’ll get a list of guys to talk to. I think you’re in good shape.”
“If I’m in such great shape why are you giving this side of things to me?”
“ ’Cause I’m a nice guy.”
“Bosch, you’re holding out.”
“I just have a hunch, that’s all.”
“That what, Harris really was framed?”
“I don’t know. But something wasn’t right with the case. I want to find out what it was.”
“So meantime I’m stuck with Chastain and his crew.”
“Yup. That’s the deal.”
“Well, what am I going to do with them? You just told me Chastain’s a leak.”
“Send them out for coffee and then run away and hide.”
Lindell laughed.
“This is what I would do,” Bosch then added on a serious note. “I’d put two of them on Elias and two on Perez. You know, doing the paper, managing the evidence, taking the autopsies – which will probably be today anyway. That will keep them busy and out of your way. Regardless of whether it’s them or not, you’ve got to put at least one body on Perez. We’ve treated her as an also-ran, which she obviously was. But you gotta do the due diligence on it or it can come back on you if you ever go to court and the lawyer asks why Perez wasn’t pursued as the primary target.”
“Right, right. We gotta cover all the bases.”
“Right.”
Lindell nodded but said nothing further.
“So come on, do we have a deal?” Bosch prompted.
“Yeah. Sounds like a plan to me. But I want to know what you and your people are doing. You keep in touch.”
“You got it. Oh, and by the way, one of the IAD guys is a Spanish speaker. Fuentes. Put him on Perez.”
Lindell nodded and pushed back from the table. He left his coffee cup there, untouched. Bosch took his with him.